socalTECH

OCTOBER 8, 2015

The Disney Accelerator , held its Demo Day for its second class on Thursday, showing off ten companies to a theater packed full of venture and angel investors. A number of the companies--showing off one huge advantage of being involved in a program run by Disney--announced deals with Disney properties to use their technology and products.

Artificial Inteligence 100

Artificial Inteligence Class Burbank Software Review 100

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 20, 2013

In my first enterprise software company we developed a methodology for sales that we called PUCCKA , which I wrote about previously. This post is about the “U” or Unique Selling Proposition, which in industry terms is often called a USP. If you need demo tips I’ve covered that before. They call them “user stories.”

Sales 336

Sales Startup Competition Customer 336

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 18, 2022

These will put your proposal in the circular file, and even future good opportunities from you may go to the bottom of my list: “Give me a call to hear about an opportunity that can’t fail.” Investors are buying part of the business, not the product or service. Let me show you a demo rather than a business plan.”

Technical Review 109

Technical Review Startup Statistics Social Media 109

Tech Zulu Event

MAY 9, 2014

As our first time covering a 500 Startups demo day , we could only imagine the stratospheric levels of stress our Batch 8 founders must have gone through to get on stage and present their progress from their last four months of startup bootcamp. In true 500 Startups fashion, Demo Day had an almost cathartic feel. ” Demo Day.

Startup 111

Startup Mobile Commerce Education 111

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 18, 2014

The frantic pace of technology cycles, the amount of tech news, the blogs, the conferences, the demo days, the announcements, the fundings, the IPOs. It got me thinking about the advice that I often give to new VCs. They want you to attend demo days. I’ll go as long as it’s not on a demo day. One is that Y.C.

Startup 317

Startup Technical Review Venture Capital Email 317

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 13, 2011

I recently filmed a show for This Week in Venture Capital in which I talked about how to prepare for a VC meeting: whom you’ll meet, who should attend from your side, what materials you should bring and how you should run the meeting. I’m comfortable with introductions and then getting into the demo.&#.

Venture Capital 299

Venture Capital Slides Technical Advisors Startup 299

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 2, 2014

If you pull hard at the time end of the spectrum you end up shipping inferior product. As obvious as it seems I assure you that many projects I’m involved with don’t sit down and have hard enough conversations about the need to hit time-based deadlines – so dates slip. CEOs are time-driven creatures.

Software 344

Software Startup Design Course 344

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 21, 2020

These will put your proposal in the circular file, and even future good opportunities from you may go to the bottom of my list: “Give me a call to hear about an opportunity that can’t fail.” Investors are buying part of the business, not the product or service. Let me show you a demo rather than a business plan.”

Technical Review 124

Technical Review Statistics Startup Social Media 124

SoCal Tech Calendar

MAY 30, 2019

10 selected startups will pitch to attendees, guest judges (investors and seasoned entrepreneurs) in a showcase/demo table style presentation. On June 5th, we're showcasing a select group of Greater-Los Angeles's finest startups in an event you won't want to miss. See [link] (more)

Competition 100

Competition SoCal Southern California Los Angeles 100

TechCrunch LA

MAY 12, 2020

This morning, Snap joined a host of startup accelerators shifting its demo day online amid the COVID-19 quarantine. Su said that shifting to a fully online program was a bit of a shock to the program, which was about one month in when COVID-19’s impact worsened stateside. Yellow investment SketchAR. ” .

Invest 237

Invest Startup Artificial Inteligence Class 237

Tech Zulu Event

AUGUST 19, 2010

TechZulu and Schmoozd have joined forces to bring you Startup Demo during Social Media Week. We are selecting 10 startups to demo during the event and the lucky chosen get to do so completely free! What: A Startup Demo event. If you have a startup you would like to showcase at Startup Demo please apply here. Price: FREE.

Social Media 71

Social Media Media Startup Mixergy 71

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

Some readers have commented that in today’s world you shouldn’t even need a PowerPoint presentation – in this era you should always just demo your product. I also recently wrote a post about a company that came in for a presentation and never even got the slides out or presented a demo. I recommend it.

Venture Capital 238

Venture Capital Slides Startup Sales 238

TechCrunch LA

DECEMBER 16, 2018

Maybe it’s time for some… Bulletproof Coffee, Modafinil, nootropics, microdoses of acid, caffeine from coffee, caffeine from bracelets , aromatherapy, noise-canceling headphones, meditation, custom co-working spaces, or productivity apps? After playing in this world for an hour, I called Job and learned more about his company.

Research 242

Research Los Angeles Entertainment Product 242

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 9, 2018

Your product demo crushed. You race back to the office to tell everybody how well it went and you wait for the follow-up call to have a partners’ meeting or talk about term sheets or at least dip into due diligence. You left the meeting dreaming about money and finally having resources to do all of the things you wanted to do.

Software Review 381

Software Review Startup Email Conference 381

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2010

The path I went down after a few years was to hire more process driven people and devolved more daily operational ownership to people running individual functions such as product management, sales management, finance, etc. Let’s not even talk about legal. It seemed a luxury to think about the future. Ditto the CFO.

Sales 296

Sales Pricing Startup Customer 296

socalTECH

JANUARY 7, 2019

Our most recent Demo Day in November 2018 (at Google/Venice on the main stage) was the most well-attended Demo Day in the history of Startup Boost. I continue to be intensely interested in the growing integration of AI across multiple products and industries, from simple applications on up to highly sophisticated software and services.

Technical Review 157

Technical Review Software Review Startup Coach 157

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

Should I trust my instincts for founders and products or should I be more focused on the market size or business plan? I’m not saying that lawyers were my screening process – simply that they knew about deals early on and they had voted with their time and pocketbooks so I knew I had a degree of filtering. What stage?

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Startup Pricing Invest 347

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 4, 2013

In other words, once they are convinced that the product works, they assume their price, sales channel, and marketing will bring in the customers. For example, one CEO I know gave away his software product to the first ten customers. So how do you go about proving the business model? Prove the technical concept. Limited rollout.

Product 94

Product Pricing Customer Custom 94

Tech Zulu Event

JUNE 7, 2010

For those who may not know of DEMO , it is a jammed packed twice a year 2 day conference filled with 6 minute on stage pitches, a demo pit, networking events, and not to mention one of the longest running emerging tech conferences. They are gearing up for DEMO Fall 2010 which is happening Sept. 13-15 in Silicon Valley.

Southern California 40

Southern California Conference SoCal San Diego 40

Berkonomics

APRIL 5, 2018

I expect that you have a story about how insurance saved you lots of money in your past. A typical beginning package for a small company costs about $4 thousand a year and covers several forms of liability for both premises and product as well as employee use of self-owned cars for work, theft, employee dishonesty and more.

Sites 266

Sites Outsource Development Customer Custom 266

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 31, 2010

I spoke about this yesterday on Fox Business News. A friend of mine once said about public speaking, “it’s far more interesting to the audience if you’re loud and evocative than if you’re actually making great points.&# This is so true. The bring your product to life. Show some energy!

Startup 362

Startup Twiistup Slides Screening 362

socalTECH

JANUARY 27, 2016

StatMuse develops natural language search software and a social interface, which helps fans push out statistics about their favorite teams; the company currently has a deal with the NBA to offer up its service to fans of the league. StatMuse was founded by Eli Dawson and Adam Elmore. READ MORE>>.

Statistics 100

Statistics Burbank Class Software 100

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 14, 2014

and I thought if we brought the community together for common purpose we could create more of a sense of community to help new entrepreneurs get funded, assemble teams, raise profiles and help with biz dev, product, etc. Sam Teller – who is young and very talented – also began to think about what he wanted to do with his career.

Venture Capital 290

Venture Capital Startup Idealab Funding 290

SoCal Tech Calendar

AUGUST 1, 2012

See product demos and learn about new ventures. Our keynote speaker is Tom McGrath, Founder of LABS Renewable Energy. Tom will present "A Disruptive Technology-Converting Waste Into Energy With Fuel Cells."

Technology Council 113

Technology Council Los Angeles Conference Technology 113

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 15, 2020

As an angel investor, I see plenty of startups focusing on building an innovative product, but I’m looking for the few who are also leading with an exponential growth strategy, to put them in the category of the next Amazon or Google. Produce memorable product demonstrations or videos.

Marketing 170

Marketing Startup Examples Customer 170

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 18, 2014

We thought we''d catch up with Erik on what he''s learned about this market, advice he''d give to companies hoping to get into an accelerator, and what gets a company funding. We just had the demo day for our third batch of companies. It''s not a three month program, demo day, and folks move out or move on.

Incubator 187

Incubator Southern California Startup Ideas 187

TechCrunch LA

SEPTEMBER 24, 2018

Pacific and is set to feature interactive product showcases, beauty demonstrations, DIY projects, and a game show. Our goal is w hat is cheddar for women with commerce and community deeply integrated into it… As we learn about which formats are successful we’ll double down on those.” 24 to Oct.

Los Angeles 114

Los Angeles Sales Commerce Networking 114

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 8, 2015

These will put your proposal in the circular file, and even future good opportunities from you may go to the bottom of my list: “Give me a call to hear about an opportunity that can’t fail.” Investors are buying part of the business, not the product or service. Let me show you a demo rather than a business plan.”

Technical Review 109

Technical Review Entrepreneur Startup Statistics 109

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 27, 2013

The problem with the TechCrunch bounce was that it often led the the TechCrunch free fall, as in your website’s precipitous decline in traffic and your products fall in users as that same 60-70,000 rushed to try the next product. Sure, some products were amazing and the crowds stuck around. Which leads to my last point.

Blogging 309

Blogging Journal Press Startup 309

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 24, 2014

These will put your proposal in the circular file, and even future good opportunities from you may go to the bottom of my list: “Give me a call to hear about an opportunity that can’t fail.” Investors are buying part of the business, not the product or service. Let me show you a demo rather than a business plan.”

Entrepreneur 119

Entrepreneur Technical Review Statistics Startup 119

SoCal CTO

MARCH 11, 2013

Yesterday, I was talking to a startup founder about their MVP and they said something that finally got me to write this post: "I have a few investors interested but they want to see a product." It is almost never the case that you are building an MVP to "show" to an investor the product itself.

Metrics 264

Metrics Venture Capital News Product 264

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 11, 2011

If you want a very quick primer on all the stuff nobody ever tells you about raising venture capital check out this video where Mark Jeffrey & I break it down on This Week in VC. Give everybody pages of the deck they’re to cover or parts of the demo for which they are to talk. Can’t you just demo & talk?

Venture Capital 340

Venture Capital Slides Doc Startup 340

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 5, 2018

These will put your proposal in the circular file, and even future good opportunities from you may go to the bottom of my list: “Give me a call to hear about an opportunity that can’t fail.” Investors are buying part of the business, not the product or service. Let me show you a demo rather than a business plan.”

Funding 62

Funding Technical Review Entrepreneur Startup 62

SoCal Delicious

SEPTEMBER 13, 2012

The Startup UCLA Accelerator Is About Entrepreneurship Not Investment Returns. Next → Later today, the Startup UCLA accelerator will have its inaugural demo day. Most have been involved in some capacity along the way with Startup UCLA, and all will be represented during the demo day. About PandoDaily. That's it.

UCLA 47

UCLA Invest Startup Class 47

socalTECH

JUNE 2, 2010

launched earlier this year at DEMO. Alon Goren: What we did, actually, was when we launched at DEMO we got up on stage, and you're not allowed to show a PowerPoint--you have to demo your product. A company could use it for anything, and individual, we have filmmakers using the site for production of their film.

Sites 237

Sites Startup Invest SoCalTech 237

Berkonomics

AUGUST 3, 2023

Certainly, bootstrapping is a preferred method of funding growth if it does not hold back the speed of growth or hobble the quality of product or service to the extent that better-funded competitors can overtake the business. There is a lot to say about retaining control.

Venture Capital 295

Venture Capital Startup Class Invest 295

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2014

I was having dinner with a friend last night and we were chatting about venture capital and a bit about what I’ve learned. I started in 2007 with a thesis that my primary investment decision would be about the team (70%) and only afterward about the market opportunity (30%). I don’t. Co-founder discontent.

Venture Capital 374

Venture Capital Invest Press Startup 374